Survivors: 1:4 Esther
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Updated: December 23 2020 09:43
Greg, Jenny and their new friends are trapped. Will they ever make it out alive?
SUMMARY
AT THE POLYTECHNIC settlement, growing doubts about the wisdom of Gillison's rule are met by increased security and surveillance. Greg, Jenny and Connor scrutinise maps and blueprints in the hope of finding a means of escape. While Jackie is a doubtful recruit to the escape committee, the loyalty of Gillison's lieutenant Fiona appears to be wavering. When Gillison shows no mercy to two members of the community accused of theft, Fiona agrees to help Greg and his friends get out. When their escape attempt is intercepted by Gillison's men, they discover that an anxious Jackie has betrayed them. With the trio locked up, Fiona and Gillison clash over the community's future. To her surprise, he agrees to a full meeting of the community at which both of them will put their case to an open vote. With the assembly under, Jackie sneaks away to free the prisoners who begin to make their way to freedom. When they realise what Gillison is planning, they race back to the centre – but will they be in time...?
COMMENTARY
THE SERIES FINALE of Big Finish's first set of Survivors audio adventures serves up some impressive and tense drama, a set of unexpected twists and turn, and a shocking denouement, before signing-off with a renewed focus on the original triumvirate of characters from the TV series.
Esther is a thoroughly engaging tale, which takes its fairly simple central premise (the heroes need to escape from the clutches of the increasingly unhinged Gillison) and spins the story in some surprising directions which ratchet up the tension and genuine sense of peril.
Switching allegiances is a recurring theme of the episode, as Jenny, Greg and Connor attempt to build a critical mass of escapees willing to risk all to escape the lockdown in their polytechnic prison camp. Both Greg and Jenny get the opportunity to flex some adventurous (and some emotional) muscles, and McCulloch and Fleming acquit themselves with rich, textured and fully believable performances.
Although it's clear that Gillison's leadership is headed for some sort of meltdown, the final outcome of his loss of reason is as unexpected as it is horrific. It provides an emotionally-wrenching finale for the series, and proves beyond question that Big Finish are not flinching from the tough and grown-up tenor of Survivors.
It makes continuity sense that when Jenny and Greg are reunited with Abby back at The Grange that Connor and Burch have opted not to join them, but it is to be strongly hoped that both these characters will make future appearances in the audio universe of Survivors.
The first series of Survivors audio dramas comes to an end in a satisfying and convincing way, having shown how effectively new characters and situations can be stitched into the fabric of an existing TV canon, when sufficient care, attention and creative talent is applied. Big Finish are to be congratulated for delivering so confident and sure-footed a first series of Survivors, an all the more impressive achievement when considering how far from the Big Finish mainstream Terry Nation's post-apocalyptic drama sits.
Series two of these new Survivors audio dramas (due in June 2015) is now eagerly anticipated
.REVIEW QUOTES
JOHN DORNEY... PROVIDES a tale which is likely to have you shouting at your iPod as the sheer horror of what is unfolding becomes clear... There's been a lot of talk about this being the best thing that Big Finish has ever done, and I would agree. Verdict: A triumph across the board. 10/10
Paul Simpson, scifibulletin.com
THERE IS AN unsettling end with little to sing and dance about. John Dorney takes up the reins for this one and drives us into even darker territory.
Sue Davies, SFcrowsnest
SURVIVORS IS IRRESISTIBLE, because no matter how bleak it gets, at its core, it offers the listener the same thing that lay at the bottom of Pandora's Box. Hope.
Tim Mass Movement, Mass Movement Magazine
AUDIO EXTRACTS
As they become available...
Survivors: New Dawn 4
The final series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy on CD and as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Abby and Jenny begin a new phase in their own journey as listeners, many of whom have followed the series from series one released back in 2014, come to the end of theirs. It’s been a remarkable, often unsettling, and always compelling series made by a creative team who have shown time and again their determination to grasp the full dramatic potential of Terry Nation’s inspired original premise."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 3
The third and penultimate series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy on CD and as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Big Finish's Survivors stories have always distinguished themselves by their ability to surprise and to shock... Together with the decline and fall of the New Federal Government, Tate's fate is a salutory reminder that there are no guarantees that the next generation of survivors will face a brighter future - even as the horrors of the pandemic fade into memory."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: Crusade
An original Survivors audiobook, narrated by Carolyn Seymour, is available to buy as a digital download from Big Finish.
"This astute, cautionary tale of the threat that distorted religious certainty can pose to the survivors of The Death is the kind of grown-up and probing storytelling for which the series' setting is so conducive... Seymour's narration is... as perceptive and mellifluous as ever."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 2
The second series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"The New Dawn series has been a compelling, well-executed foray into a 'future' post-pandemic Britain never before attempted in the Survivors universe. Big Finish regularly jumps around within and beyond the established canon of TV series in its range, and that option would remain open in the world of Survivors. Who knows what will come next? If New Dawn 2 marks the end of Survivors journey on audio, then that will mean that an accomplished, inventive and assured series concludes with a remarkable and satisfying endpoint."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: Ghosts and Demons
This original Survivors audiobook, narrated by Carolyn Seymour, is available to buy as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Ghosts and Demons is a fantastic addition to the audio literature of Survivors. Author Ethan Milsea uses the cautionary tale of the predatory Tommy as a means to explore the different fears and nightmares that haunt those who have experienced the trauma of The Death and survived. This story, which locks itself in to the first TV series' timeline, delivers admirably on what can often be an elusive ambition: to be both in-keeping with the existing dramatic terrain and to break open new and fertile ground."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 1
The first series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"The first series of New Dawn retains the core sense of jeopardy that made the original post-Death context of Survivors so compelling. Yet it does in a way that is original and genuinely exhilarating. Imagining how the country might have moved on more than two decades after the pandemic provides Survivors with a new 'what if' premise that crackles with potential"
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: series nine
The ninth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"There's still great potential here, as the UK begins to emerge from the dark ages of The Death, for more stories set in this uniquely realised dystopia, should sufficient numbers of those who have yet to purchase copies of this extraordinary audio series belatedly recognise the error of their ways. If that doesn't happen, this will remain a stunning finale for what must be celebrated as a consistently compelling audio drama, 5/5"
Cultbox
Survivors: series eight
The eight series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"This latest boxset delivers an impressive mix of large scale, high stakes and small scale, intimate stories which set in motion the events which will come to an explosive conclusion in the final set in this current run of post-apocalyptic dramas, 5/5 "
Cultbox
Survivors: series seven
The seventh series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"At times harrowing, at other moments uplifting, and never anything other than completely riveting listening, this latest series of Survivors audios delivers drama that is simply unmissable. As the series leaves behind the timeline of the TV incarnation of the show, Big Finish's writers, cast and crew are all clearly brimming with fully deserved confidence. The two series of new Survivors audios coming in 2018 could scarcely be a more exciting or (in the best sense of the word) a more unpredictable prospect, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series six
The sixth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"After five extraordinarily well-received box sets, each of which offered a self-contained and themed collection of four episodes, the sixth series of Survivors audio adventures confidently takes a fresh approach... It's a liberating shift in format and, under the keenly judged direction of Ken Bentley, these scripts make exceptional use of the opportunity to tell diverse, if equally compelling, standalone stories, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series five
The fifth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"As it explores the highest stakes possible, this develops into the most thrilling and compelling set of stories in Big Finish's Survivors series to date: which, considering the exceptional quality of the drama in the preceding four instalments, is quite some achievement. This is extraordinary, exemplary human drama; by any standard, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series four
The fourth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"Intelligent, literate and superbly scripted and performed, this is a post-apocalyptic drama of the highest possible calibre. Determined to avoid the predictable tropes of that genre, it invites its listeners to navigate a moral minefield in a way that few other dramas of this type would attempt. This comes recommended without reservation"
Starburst
Survivors: series three
The third series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Survivors: series two
The second series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Survivors: audio-book
A full-length audiobook of Terry Nation's Survivors novel (in CD and download formats) read by Carolyn Seymour.
Survivors: series one
The first series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Latest updates
New Dawn 3 reviews added
Added: 17 May 2023
Review of Crusade audiobook added
Added: 21 June 2022
New Dawn 2 reviews added
Added: 02 March 2022
New Dawn 1 and Ghosts and Demons reviews added
Added: 03 January 2022
Links
Original TV series (1975-1977)
- Survivors: A World Away (main site)
- Survivors: A World Away (news blog)
- Survivors: Mad Dog (special episode site)